Tailoring Your Press Releases to Specific Outlets

We’ve all been guilty of it at one point. We write one press release and distribute it to a range of media outlets — newspapers, TV, radio, blogs, etc. And when we don’t get the results we hoped for, we wonder why. (Read more…)

The Dangers of “Third-Party” Public Relations

Whether you’re a pundit, an expert, an analyst, or a third party, it’s important to remember that you rarely know all the facts. The media does not care about this; they just want a quote and a public relations contact to attribute it to. The juicier the sound bites you offer, the better for journalists, but not necessarily for you. (Read more…)

Everything Journalists Want to Know About Their Public Relations Contacts

Since entering the world of public relations, my workday has changed drastically from the time when I was a professional journalist. Becoming a public relations consultant has altered how I deal with the media and how I deal with internal public relations at my company. (Read more…)

Public Relations in the Age of the Sound Bite

Journalists love sound bites. We ask questions explicitly aimed at eliciting snappy, one-sentence comments. We’ve all seen television interviews or press briefings boiled down to a 15-second sound bite. Newspaper and magazine articles tend to have at least one definitive quote you can imagine a speechwriter whispering into a reporter’s ear. (Read more…)

Martha, Martha, Martha! What Martha is Teaching Us

Are we sick of Martha Stewart yet?

The media is about five minutes away from overkill on the Martha Stewart story, but don’t expect that to stop editors and producers from pushing for more Martha stories. The domestic Goddess makes for good ink and exciting television play. A&E, the normally staid entertainment network, is rushing out a Martha program and is promoting it by using sound bites from the federal prosecutor’s press conference announcing Martha’s indictment. (Read more…)